Old Man and His Roommate Accused of Threatening Landlord

A 70-year-old man and his 35-year-old, uh, roommate have been arrested for threatening their landlord's agent with gruesome torture. Elderly architect Ekkehart Schwarz and his younger roommate, Vassileios Giamagas, allegedly threatened "death and torture," against an unnamed man sent by the landlord to collect $265,000 in back rent. Prosecutor James Meadows says the two stopped paying rent on a restaurant space at 68 West Third Street because the landlord would not make necessary repairs. According to the Daily News, when the landlord's representative came to collect, Giamagas and another man forced him at gunpoint to sign a document stating that $50,000 had been paid, and threatened to sodomize him if he didn't comply. Later, after threatening the agent with torture via "a hammer and pliers," they allegedly forced him to sign blank checks for them, one of which they cashed for $25,000. As for Schwarz's roommate situation, a neighbor tells the News, "It was very mysterious."